Customer story
Novel moulded fibre packaging to replace fossil-based packaging
"The Innovation Fund application and Grant Agreement preparation phases are both very demanding, requiring expert teams with very special skills. Few, even big companies can alone meet these resource demands and thus, reaching out to expert organisations like Spinverse is a must. We are very pleased with the support we got from Spinverse working on the 3D Fibre project."
Niklas von Weymarn, CEO, Metsä Spring.
Customer story in numbers
86.5
M€
11
Years
Funding instrument
Innovation Fund
Metsä Spring is building a first-of-a-kind Muoto™ mill in Rauma, Finland for functional and safe novel packaging solutions for food and food service packaging. Muoto™ packaging solutions are manufactured from Northern wood replacing fossil-based plastic packaging.
Key challenges
Metsä Group’s innovation company Metsä Spring, the roles of which include investing in and supporting potential innovations and technologies that find new purposes and higher value for Nordic wood, thus replacing fossil-based raw materials in everyday products with innovative wood-based solutions.
How we reached the goals
The Spinverse team of experts supported Metsä Group with their Innovation Fund proposal. Spinverse contributed extensively to the proposal’s feasibility study, business plan and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission avoidance calculations during the intense proposal preparation phase. The Spinverse team provided a full-service package which included project concepting, proposal writing and proposal preparation process management as well as coordinated support in the Grant Agreement Process (GAP) between Metsä Group and the EU.
Key takeaways
Firstly, The 3D fibre demo plant in Äänekoski, Finland, jointly owned with Valmet, is used to test and further develop the new manufacturing method. Secondly, pre-commercial sales have been launched with the aim of getting a better understanding of the market's views of the novel Muoto™ products. Thirdly, the pre-engineering phase of the potential commercial Muoto™ mill in Rauma is currently underway. If promising results are obtained from each of these three main fronts, Metsä Group may be in a position to consider investing in the first-of-a-kind Muoto™ mill and in the start-up of the Muoto™ packaging business, earliest by end of 2025.
Impact of the project
Contributes to reducing Europe’s GHG emissions and its dependence on imported crude oil in the packaging sector; boosting Europe’s circular economy ambitions and tackling the challenges related to packaging waste. New jobs will also be created.
Photo credit: Metsä Group